Detectives-and-deafness drama defies critics and builds up impressive head of steam

There was a gnawing suspicion that The Silence wouldn’t amount to much, since it was dumped in a four-night splurge in the middle of the mid-summer doldrums, and even the normally docile Radio Times had decided to stamp its foot and pick holes in it. One’s apprehension proved ill-founded, however. It turned out to be taut, tense, well acted and smartly written, and carried enough pace to lift it over the more credulity-stretching passages.

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I watched the first episode of ' The Silence ' on iPlayer , I just chanced across it and watched on Tuesday morning with I must admit , a touch of skepticism , ..How wrong could I be ! a magnificent series of programmes , The story was great , the tension was riveting and the acting was superb .. by every character , faultless and believable . A special mention of course has to go to Genevieve Barr who played the part of Amelia so well that she brought a subject that very few understand into our lives and to a new level of comprehension and dare I say empathy ?
I dont know if " Amelia " and extended family could be revisited again extending the story and lives of them all but I for one would welcome it .

I thought the ending ruined the whole show, you watch four good episodes and then there is no real end. While there may be some point trying to be made there I do think viewers prefer an end.
While the acting of Amelia was good and showed advantages to deafness I did find the character annoying too - maybe that is the point that teenagers can be annoying. Maybe if they had not made her dress so unflattering and her expression so dour all the time it may have helped but the portrayal led me to feel that her cousins would have found her rather irritating rather than loveable and it made their concern for her not feel that believable.
Anyway an ending would be good!

What utter drivel. I can't believe I watched it until the end as after the first episode I couldn't believe that it could get any worse but there I was another 3 hours later thinking there is 4 hours I will never back again. The actions and over-reactions of some of the characters was so incomprehensible that my wife and I just stared at each other in disbelief. For drama to be watchable it has to be believable and the charaters have to behave like real people. In the end I was half wishing that al the main characters would come a croper, but no such luck. I found myself thinking 'I bet this is written by a woman'. Next time I will stick to my instincts and give it a miss or at least sky+ it and watch it in fast forward mode which would at least have spared me the melodramatic 'silent' pauses.

Brilliant Drama. Poor ending. For it to expect the viewer to interpret so much of the ending on one hand, and then on the other ask us to gloss over the unproffesional approach the drug squad took in staging Jims suicide (leaving him with his phone and not slitting his wrists properly) just rankles me. At least develop the Beardy guys so you could believe they were close to cracking up and you could get away with it. But what really spoiled the end for me was the slap in the face to say "you've just wasted 3hours and 55 minutes watching this plot development when you could've gotten it over in 5." Just let Amelia talk to Rocky straight away and all will be well. A gripping 3:55 but it's not Cormac McCarthy I want from a four hour tv drama. In that length of time I want the plot concluded more decisively, Sugar. I know it's Chigurh.

The Kasabian song was "Fire". Obviously some debate about the ending. Personally, though I'd have loved to see the villains blown away in a Magnum Force apocalypse, I thought it conveyed the idea that justice doesn't always triumph, police corruption is an unavoidable fact, and the good guys often lose. Also I think the idea was that you focused on Amelia' s personal journey and her developing relationships with Doug Henshall et al as much as the crime saga.

I was so looking forward to the last episode, so watched it with great enthusiasm tonight, and I'm left hanging. Where's the ending?? I also found it a bit frustrating that Amelia somehow managed to lip read when people had their backs to her. The police officer circling around her in the interview room, and Jim when he was looking out of the hotel room were just two examples. BBC, please give us another episode.

Only the BBC could make a brilliant drama and then make the whole thing pointless by having the worst ending possible. I feel like I have completely wated my time watching the first 3 episodes now. I won't be watching any BBC multi part dramas again. Awful. If only ITV had made it at least they know how to end dramas.

How disapointing! After watching parts 1-4 on iPlayer, I spent the whole of Friday looking forward to the fifth episode... seriously! Later on I even spent a couple of hours trying to work out why the finale had not been posted yet. iPlayer really should indicate the total number of parts somewhere other than in the detailed (spoiler) programme notes.

I watched the 1st episode and thought it was good with regards to the cutting and ambience.In fact I will say that it was very good. So good that it made up for the ridiculous story and superficiality of the situation. The acting went half way to contributing to being able to keep watching. But it was 2/3 for the first part and that deficit seems to keep growing as the series progresses. It encroaches into the good areas and just makes it so stupid. We used to make good t.v. Why does there have to be such middle class bawbaggery on bbc.
There are such amazing talents out there in our country able to write about believable situations in an engaging manner.
I mean come on Agatha Christe jeeeeeeeeeeeezus save this stuff for bbc7 and give us something real. Or if at least make it good sc-fi.

Brilliant Crime Drama, can't decide about the ending. Half of me hated it because my natural curiosity was - and still is - just burning to find out what happened and if there was more to it then met the eye (or ear). For instance, as soon as Lee and Mac found out Amelia was the witness I was sure it was Terry who'd told them, as he'd just found out as well. Other viewers I spoke to also thought this, but it was never confirmed, denied or even touched on. On the other hand, I agree with @Adam Sweeting@ that it was trying to show that the good guys don't always win and things don't always work like in CSI or Agatha Christie.
(Totally agree with @Elinor@ about the lip reading while someone's back is turned thing. That kind of mistake bugs me SO bad!)
I wish we'd seen things a little from the "bad" guys' point of view as well; they had to kill Jane Shilliday because ...etc and they had to try and kill Jim because ...etc and that way we would have got some insight into their justification of the murders. (I don't believe that there are 'good' and 'bad', everyone does things for a reason.)
Also, I agree with @Frank Wilde@ about Lee and Mac not slitting Jim's wrists properly. They managed the other murdere, and surely this one was the most crucial (in their eyes - Jim knew everything) so they would do it right. Perhaps it would've been good to see that they were interrupted and didn't have time or some other reason.
Then again, perhaps the ending was left the way it was to suggest that they weren't the ones to go for Jim. The whole ambience of the show (which was, I think, amazingly awesomely incredible in every single way!!!!!) builds up this feeling of not-quite-knowing and being slightly unsure about everything. It could've been left how it was to give the viewer the suggestion that maybe Jim really was a bit not-right-in-the-head and he did it to himself (suicide) and/or the drugs in his drawer really were his. It could all've been some massive plot...? Just a suggestion, and I'm not even sure if I like it, but whatever.
Saying all of this, It was still the best thing I've seen in ages. I loved it. I hope it is available on DVD some time (I'm downloading it to Iplayer Desktop as I type!).

What a disappointment in the ending!! It is always so frustrating to watch a mini series with the all the tension building up to the final episode and............nothing. I too thought there must be a fifth.
Rubbish.

another clanger dropped by the BBC.
The Silence fantasic television in a period were we are struggling for decent entertainment. But the fact it was not hyped up before and the fact the BBC have nothing prepared to answer us all on if or when there will be a second series just shows they thought they were fobbing us of with more mindless dribble. Please BBC sort yourselves out

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